“They will say to their skins, ‘Why did you testify against us?’ They will reply, ‘Allah, who gives speech to all things, gave us speech. He created you the first time, and to Him you will be returned. * You did not conceal yourselves from your hearing, sight, and skins for fear that they would testify against you. Rather, you thought that Allah did not know much of what you did. * That thought which you harbored about your Lord brought you to ruin, and you became among the losers. * Even if they endure patiently, the Fire will be their abode; and if they seek to make amends, they will not be allowed to do so.’”
When their bodily parts testify against them, they will reproach them: “They will say to their skins”—this proves that every bodily part will testify, as we have mentioned—“Why did you testify against us when we were defending you?” “They will reply, ‘Allah, who gives speech to all things, gave us speech.’” Thus, it was not within their power to refrain from testifying once they were given speech by Him whose will no one can resist.
“He created you the first time.” Just as He created your very selves and bodies, He also created your attributes, including the ability to speak. “And to Him you will be returned” in the Hereafter, where He will requite you for what you did. Alternatively, this may be intended as an argument for the resurrection based on the first creation, as is the Quran’s customary method of argument.
“You did not conceal yourselves from your hearing, sight, and skins for fear that they would testify against you.” That is, you did not hide from the testimony of your own bodily parts, nor did you guard against it. “Rather, you thought”—as shown by your bold commission of sins—“that Allah did not know much of what you did.” That is why you did what you did. This thought became the cause of their ruin and misery. Hence He says: “That thought which you harbored about your Lord”—your evil thought, for you thought of Him what was unbefitting His majesty—“brought you to ruin,” that is, destroyed you, “and you became among the losers,” losing yourselves, your families, and your faith because of the deeds to which your reprehensible thoughts about your Lord led you. Thus, the decree of punishment and misery became binding upon them, and they were doomed to abide forever in a torment that is not eased for even a single hour:
“Even if they endure patiently, the Fire will be their abode.” They can muster neither fortitude nor patience for it. Whatever condition one might suppose can be borne patiently, the Fire cannot be borne. How could anyone patiently bear a Fire whose heat is so intense and seventy times greater than the fire of this world; whose scalding water boils fiercely; whose pus grows ever more foul; whose freezing cold is multiplied; whose chains and iron collars are immense; whose iron maces are enormous; whose keepers are harsh and have had all mercy stripped from their hearts? The culmination of all this is the wrath of the All-Compelling Lord and His words to them when they call upon Him and cry for relief: “Remain despised therein and do not speak to Me.”
“And if they seek to make amends”—that is, if they ask for the blame to be removed from them and to be returned to the world so that they may begin their deeds anew—“they will not be allowed to do so,” because the time for that has passed. They were granted lives long enough for anyone willing to take heed, and the warner came to them, leaving them without excuse. Moreover, their plea to make amends is itself a lie: “If they were returned, they would certainly go back to what they had been forbidden; indeed, they are liars.”